


The Selfsame Tune and Words

by Merry Madrigal (Brachylagus_fandom)



Category: The 39 Clues - Various Authors
Genre: Gen, Prophetic Visions, References to Macbeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24411592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brachylagus_fandom/pseuds/Merry%20Madrigal
Summary: Gideon Cahill and Damien Vesper have a very odd encounter whilst travelling.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	The Selfsame Tune and Words

**Author's Note:**

> The title (and all of the dialogue) comes from Macbeth Act I, Scene 3. (Which, given that Shakespeare is a Madrigal, is kind of funny...) Set a couple years before the fire.

As he and Damien rode towards Forres, Gideon pondered his father's ring, turning it over and over in his hand and running his thumb over its engravings. What they meant, he did not know - his father certainly hadn't been in a state to explain them when he gave it to Gideon - and although they bore some similarity to the carvings on Sueno's Stone, he doubted this trip would make them less inscrutable. At this point, over two years after his father's passing and with six seemingly promising leads having been pure follies, he doubted _anything_ would make the markings less inscrutable, and he would gladly have returned to Cahill Isle and his family already if not for Damien's insistence.

Gideon was brought out of his thoughts by an abrupt dimness, as if dusk had fallen less than an hour after noon. Ahead of him, Damien paused as he fumbled for a lantern. Gideon scanned what little he could see of his surroundings - was this an eclipse? a rapidly approaching storm? a portent meant to terrify two men who had long since risen above such superstition? - but saw only heath shrouded in mist that he could have sworn was not there mere minutes ago. 

"So foul and fair a day I have not seen," Damien, also frantically looking around, muttered. Above him, dark clouds, which had overtaken the previously clear sky, rumbled ominously.

"How far is it called to Forres?" Gideon asked. The mist and darkness had obscured any landmarks he might have recognized - including the road on which they had been travelling - but Damien knew this land far better than he. Instead of answering, Damien merely shrugged and moved his lantern in the direction he thought they had been travelling, but he only illuminated three cloaked figures ahead of them. "What are these, so withered and so wild in their attire, that look not like the inhabitants of the earth and yet are on it?" Again, his companion had no reply.

"Speak, if you can," Damien said. "What are you?"

"All hail, Vesper!" The figure's voice was oddly distorted by the mist, too close and too far away at the same time, far too loud and almost too soft to be comprehensible. "Hail to thee, heir of the genius!"

"All hail, Vesper!" the second repeated. "Hail to thee, heir of the Prince!"

"All hail, Vesper!" the last shouted. "Thou shalt rule kings hereafter!" At this, Damien, who had been listening calmly and even eagerly, jolted in his saddle. Gideon slapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?" he asked. Damien gave him an indecipherable look as Gideon turned to address the witches. "In the name of truth, are ye fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly ye show? My noble partner, you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope, that he seems rapt withal: to me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate." Gideon instantly regretted the challenge as the three figures turned to face him.

"Hail!" the first figure called. "Lesser than your friend, and greater."

"Hail!" the second said. "Not so happy, yet much happier."

"Hail!" the third yelled. "Thou shalt get kings, though thou rule none. So all hail, Vesper and Cahill!"

"Vesper and Cahill, all hail!" With that, the figures began to walk away.

"Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more!" Damien, trying and failing to get his horse to follow them, cried. "Say from whence you owe this strange intelligence? or why upon this blasted heath you stop our way with such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you!" But the figures paid him no heed and had soon disappeared back into the mist.

As suddenly as he and Damien had been thrown into this bizarre place, the world around them reverted; it was again early afternoon with nary a cloud in sight, and the road - and the heath Damien had guided his horse halfway into - was both clearly visible and clear of other travellers.

"The earth hath bubbles," Gideon, trying to regain his bearings, said slowly, "as the water has, and these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

"Into the air," Damien replied as he scanned the heath around them, "and what seemed corporal melted as breath into the wind." Finding nothing, he extinguished his lantern and struck his saddle in frustration. "Would they had stayed!"

"Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?" Damien only shrugged and steered his horse back onto the road. Silence followed them to Forres, and if Gideon held his breath on the way back to Inverness after another failed lead, Damien did not comment on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Sueno's stone is an actual artifact located in Forres.
> 
> I didn't feel comfortable trying to figure out what titles Damien might (or did) have, so I made that section of the witches' prophecy more metaphorical. The genius mentioned is Archimedes, who made the original plans for the doomsday device, and the prince is a Machiavelli reference.


End file.
